Good morning 👋
And happy Friday - what a week.
Somebody once told me that VC is a hospitality business. I think that’s partially true, but some data would actually suggest otherwise.
Today we’ll break down why a better NPS has resulted in lower DPI numbers for some funds.
P.S. 🌴 We’re sending out early-access invites to our Miami in-person event soon …
If you like good weather, golf, boats, and meeting other allocators, you can apply to join here.
Today’s highlights
Chasing the wrong numbers
Robotics funding is booming
Predicting the next wave of AI opportunities
Are you actually thesis-driven?
TOP
NPS =/= DPI
Something that often gets forgotten working in venture: the actual job of working venture.
Venture is a long reputation game, being liked has benefits, and that has created an environment where everybody is competing for approval.
There has been a massive explosion of funds over the past decade that have tried to carve their edge by providing more and more service to founders. Expansion of platform teams, talent services, you name it.
I get it. Venture is more competitive than ever, and you have to have something different to win the deals you want to get in.
But ironically, a lot of this extra work has been inversely correlated to distributing money back to LPs.
To paraphrase the tweet above, this could come down to one of two things:
You’re adding negative value as an investor by spending too much time with the founding team and clouding their vision
Concentration risk has clouded your judgement, and you are misallocating time and resources as a result
GP / LP Mastermind
The “anti-conference” for fund managers 🌴
We don’t like conferences, so we created our own version that we would actually look forward to going to.
Small group of 6-10 LPs, GPs, and partners
Golf and padel
Boat charter
Private dinners
No outside sponsors
We only have space for 6-10, and applications close in under a month.
If you’re interested, we’d recommend letting us know sooner rather than later …
TWEET
HEADLINES
AI Agents Are Everywhere…and Nowhere (WSJ)
Can AI Predict the Next Big IPO? Crunchbase Thinks So. (WSJ)
After raising $1 billion, fintech Varo closes another $29 million, replaces founder CEO (TechCrunch)
AI boom sparks investor frenzy for robotics startups (Pitchbook)
Redpoint-led round values longevity startup Function Health at $2.5B (Pitchbook)
MEMOS
Chima: Interoperability for AI agents
Superpower: The all-in-one health membership for elite performers
Documenso: The DocuSign killer
LINKS
🏹 Where will the AI Horde Strike Next?: Andrew Chen believes the AI Horde is so powerful that it will reinvent Hollywood, gaming, YouTube, AI video, and social media
🧐 The AI Elbow’s Impact—What Reasoning Means for Business: Tomasz Tunguz shows the continued improvements of AI models are due to a more sophisticated user of AI
🧠 For a More Creative Brain Follow These 5 Steps: These steps will help you become more creative by making new connections between old ideas
🌟 Great Company: 3 traits that nearly all great companies have
🤷♂️ When the Data and the Anecdotes Disagree, the Anecdotes are Usually Right: Mostly Metrics discusses solving a problem begins at the ground level, not relying on data that may not have measured correctly to begin with
MEME
BOARDROOM
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GTM mistakes that slow down sales
Marketing / paid advertising mistakes that literally light money on fire
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Not delegating or using automation that cost me hundreds of hours of my time
And a thousand others
But after making tweaks for 5+ years, you start to learn what works and what doesn’t.
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- Clay
